IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i19p10658-d643040.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Guest at Home: The Experience of Chinese Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago

Author

Listed:
  • Ke Zhang

    (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28015 Madrid, Spain)

  • Victoria Labajo

    (Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28015 Madrid, Spain)

  • Ignacio Ramos

    (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28015 Madrid, Spain)

  • Almudena González del Valle-Brena

    (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28015 Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

This study identifies the main dimensions and attributes that shape the experience of the Camino de Santiago for Chinese travelers as a tourism product. By exploring the similarities and differences between their experiences and that of Western pilgrims, it also reflects on the sustainable marketing strategies of the Camino among Chinese travelers. The research adopts a phenomenological approach and gathers data from 112 online travel journals posted by Chinese Camino pilgrims, and from in-depth interviews with twelve Chinese pilgrims. The results reveal that the Camino is experienced by Chinese pilgrims as a personal journey of well-being and growth, as well as a cross-cultural experience. Authenticity and harmony are observed to be the key elements that contribute to a satisfying and transformative experience for Chinese pilgrims, where they find a cultural-spiritual center close to their traditional values, yet distant from their everyday social practices. Both Chinese and Western pilgrims undergo similar external and internal journeys, although each group travels in its respective sociocultural framework. The study is based on Cohen’s (1979) five travel-mode theory and enriches the discussion from a cross-cultural point of view. The implications for the sustainable management of the Camino as a global cultural heritage route, and for effectively marketing it among Chinese tourists, are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Ke Zhang & Victoria Labajo & Ignacio Ramos & Almudena González del Valle-Brena, 2021. "A Guest at Home: The Experience of Chinese Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-15, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:10658-:d:643040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10658/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10658/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diego R. Medina-Muñoz & Rita D. Medina-Muñoz & Alexander Zúñiga-Collazos, 2013. "Tourism and Innovation in China and Spain: A Review of Innovation Research on Tourism," Tourism Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 319-337, April.
    2. Kim, Bona & Kim, Seongseop Sam & King, Brian, 2016. "The sacred and the profane: Identifying pilgrim traveler value orientations using means-end theory," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 142-155.
    3. Amaro, Suzanne & Antunes, Angela & Henriques, Carla, 2018. "A closer look at Santiago de Compostela's pilgrims through the lens of motivations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 271-280.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karina A. Rus & Ștefan Dezsi & Ovidiu R. Ciascai & Florin Pop, 2022. "Calibrating Evolution of Transformative Tourism: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-40, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mauro Romanelli & Patrizia Gazzola & Daniele Grechi & Francesca Pollice, 2021. "Towards a sustainability‐oriented religious tourism," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 386-396, May.
    2. Kuo-Yan Wang, 2022. "Sustainable Tourism Development Based upon Visitors’ Brand Trust: A Case of “100 Religious Attractions”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-30, February.
    3. M. Victoria Sanagustín-Fons & Luis B. Tobar-Pesántez & Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, 2020. "Happiness and Cultural Tourism: The Perspective of Civil Participation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-20, April.
    4. Amaro, Suzanne & Antunes, Angela & Henriques, Carla, 2018. "A closer look at Santiago de Compostela's pilgrims through the lens of motivations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 271-280.
    5. Maria Carmen IORDACHE, 2020. "Religious Tourism - Between Content And Desire In Economic And Social Development," Contemporary Economy Journal, Constantin Brancoveanu University, vol. 5(4), pages 170-179.
    6. Collins-Kreiner, Noga, 2020. "A review of research into religion and tourism Launching the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on religion and tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Rafael Robina Ramírez & Manuel Pulido Fernández, 2018. "Religious Experiences of Travellers Visiting the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    8. Paulo Maçãs Nunes & Zélia Serrasqueiro, 2017. "Short-term debt and long-term debt determinants in small and medium-sized hospitality firms," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 543-560, May.
    9. Munhyang (Moon) Oh & Seongseop (Sam) Kim & Youngjoon Choi, 2020. "Analyses of determinants of hiking tourism demands on the Jeju Olle hiking trail using zero-truncated negative binomial regression analysis," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(8), pages 1327-1343, December.
    10. João Romão, 2020. "Variety, Smart Specialization and Tourism Competitiveness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-13, July.
    11. Hany Kim & Semih Yilmaz & Soyoun Ahn, 2019. "Motivational Landscape and Evolving Identity of a Route-Based Religious Tourism Space: A Case of Camino de Santiago," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-20, June.
    12. Kádár, Bálint & Gede, Mátyás, 2021. "Tourism flows in large-scale destination systems," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Jinyang Deng & Jian Li, 2019. "Segmentation of Nature-Based Tourists in a Rural Area (2008–2009): A Single-Item Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, April.
    14. Yi Guo & Jinbo Jiang & Shengchao Li, 2019. "A Sustainable Tourism Policy Research Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-16, June.
    15. Wang, Shaohua & Blasco, Dani & Hamzah, Amran & Verschuuren, Bas, 2023. "Tourists and ‘philosophers’: Nature as a medium to consciousness and transcendence in spiritual tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    16. Munar, Ana María & Meged, Jane W. & Bødker, Mads & Wiedemann, Cecilie Dam, 2021. "Existential walking," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Tahani Hassan & Mauricio Carvache-Franco & Wilmer Carvache-Franco & Orly Carvache-Franco, 2022. "Segmentation of Religious Tourism by Motivations: A Study of the Pilgrimage to the City of Mecca," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, June.
    18. Silvia Aulet & Tomasz Duda, 2020. "Tourism Accessibility and Its Impact on the Spiritual Sustainability of Sacred Sites," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-19, November.
    19. Manuela Presutti & Marco Savioli & Vincenza Odorici, 2020. "Strategic orientation of hotels: Evidence from a contingent approach," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(7), pages 1212-1230, November.
    20. Md. Karimul Islam & Fariha Farjana & Nishad Nasrin & Md. Shakil Ahmed, 2023. "The economic, social and environmental implications of heritage tourism: evidence from Bangladesh," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 1-21, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:10658-:d:643040. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.